In the _Iliad_ we are allowed to catch something of the story of the old time before Agamemnon,--the war of Thebes, Lycurgus, Jason, Heracles,--and even of things less widely notable, less of a concern to the world than the voyage of Argo, such as, for instance, the business of Nestor in his youth. In _Beowulf_, in a similar way, the inexhaustible world outside the story is partly represented by means of allusions and digressions. The tragedy of Finnesburh is sung by the harper, and his song is reported at some length, not merely referred to in passing. The stories of Thrytho, of Heremod, of Sigemund the Wælsing and Fitela his son (Sigmund and Sinfiotli), are introduced like the stories of Lycurgus or of Jason in Homer. They are illustrations of the action, taken from other cycles. The fortunes of the Danish and Gautish kings, the fall of Hygelac, the feuds with Sweden, these matters come into closer relation with the story. They are not so much illustrations taken in from without, as points of attachment between the history of _Beowulf_ and the untold history all round it, the history of the persons concerned, along with Beowulf himself, in the vicissitudes of the Danish and Gautish kingdoms. In the fragments of _Waldere_, also, there are allusions to other stories. In _Waldere_ there has been lost a poem much longer and fuller than the _Lay of Hildebrand_, or any of the poems of the "Elder Edda"--a poem more like _Beowulf_ than any of those now extant. The references to Weland, to Widia Weland's son, to Hama and Theodoric, are of the same sort as the references in _Beowulf_ to the story of Froda and Ingeld, or the references in the _Iliad_ to the adventures of Tydeus. In the episodic passages of _Beowulf_ there are, curiously, the same degrees of relevance as in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. Some of them are necessary to the proper fulness of the story, though not essential parts of the plot. Such are the references to Beowulf's swimming-match; and such, in the _Odyssey_, is the tale told to Alcinous. The allusions to the wars of Hygelac have the same value as the references in the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ to such portions of the tale of Troy, and of the return of the Greek lords, as are not immediately connected with the anger of Achilles, or the return of Odysseus. The tale of _Finnesburh_ in _Beowulf_ is purely an interlude, as much as the ballad of _Ares and Aphrodite_ in the _Odyssey_.